A Fair Trade Book
Title: The Darwin Awards II
Title: The Darwin Awards II
Author: Wendy Northcutt
Author's web site: www.darwinawards.com
Publisher: Dutton / Penguin
Date: 2001
ISBN: 0-525-94623-3
Length: 240 pages including index
Quote: “Darwin Awards commemorate
those individuals who ensure the long-term survival of our species by
removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic
fashion....We are not poking tasteless fun at accidents. On the
contrary! Darwin Awards poke fun at decisions that were obviously
wrong at the time.”
The easiest way to find out whether you like the Darwin Awards is to click over to Northcutt's web site, which is updated with fresh feats of stupidity and links you can use to buy new books in the series. If you feel very strongly that a story isn't funny if a person gets hurt, you might not enjoy the site or the books, because Darwin Awards are issued only for true stories of people either killing or sterilizing themselves. If you laugh at the world-class stupidity demonstrated in these stories, don't feel too bad; the books have been marketed as humor and have sold fairly well.
The easiest way to find out whether you like the Darwin Awards is to click over to Northcutt's web site, which is updated with fresh feats of stupidity and links you can use to buy new books in the series. If you feel very strongly that a story isn't funny if a person gets hurt, you might not enjoy the site or the books, because Darwin Awards are issued only for true stories of people either killing or sterilizing themselves. If you laugh at the world-class stupidity demonstrated in these stories, don't feel too bad; the books have been marketed as humor and have sold fairly well.
It would probably be a stretch to say
that the redeeming social value of the Darwin Awards is that they
teach us basic safety lessons. People who needed the kind of safety
tips the Darwin Awards teach are probably beyond help. These are
reportedly true stories about people who attempt to perform
liposuction with a household vacuum cleaner, hide in walk-in meat
coolers until they freeze to death, and dive off seventy-foot walls
into three-foot water. Each story is guaranteed to make readers shake
their heads and say “Duh...”
Well...you never know what kids will think of next, and if you know a kid who's going through the "Ha-ha, I'm riding a bike without a helmet, I'm in a car without a seat belt, and I'm still alive, so there" stage, these are excellent books to hand to that kid. Very cool, bland, matter-of-fact way to let the kid see what kind of stunts are likely to lead to pain, death, and also being remembered as stupid rather than brave.
Well...you never know what kids will think of next, and if you know a kid who's going through the "Ha-ha, I'm riding a bike without a helmet, I'm in a car without a seat belt, and I'm still alive, so there" stage, these are excellent books to hand to that kid. Very cool, bland, matter-of-fact way to let the kid see what kind of stunts are likely to lead to pain, death, and also being remembered as stupid rather than brave.
Although Wendy Northcutt probably does
believe the controversial theory of macroevolution, which this web
site does not endorse, you don't have to believe in macroevolution to
appreciate the Darwin Awards. What these posthumous awards for
outrageous, self-destructive stupidity commemorate is microevolution,
the fact that makes selective breeding possible. If you agree, even for the sake of argument, that
stupidity as stupefying as these feats probably depends on a genetic
defect, then you can appreciate the concept behind this book.
If you want to read the
stories of the student (what college admitted him?) who lay across
railroad tracks “to see how close he could get” (to moving
trains) “without getting hit,” the man who thought it was safe to
pop the magazine out of a “semiautomatic” pistol and pull the
trigger while pointing the pistol at his head, and the man who tried
to steal the copper cable that powers an electric train, this book is
for you.
It's a Fair Trade Book. To buy it online, send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo $5 per book + $5 per package. (I'd like to specify which of the other volumes in the series are also available as Fair Trade Books, but this computer, the Sickly Snail, can't even open Amazon. Basically, books that are still being sold as new books under the original author/publisher contract aren't available as Fair Trade Books; books that are widely available secondhand are.) When you send us this total of $10, we send Northcutt or a charity of her choice $1. If you buy six of these books, you send us $35 and we send Northcutt or her charity $6.
It's a Fair Trade Book. To buy it online, send salolianigodagewi @ yahoo $5 per book + $5 per package. (I'd like to specify which of the other volumes in the series are also available as Fair Trade Books, but this computer, the Sickly Snail, can't even open Amazon. Basically, books that are still being sold as new books under the original author/publisher contract aren't available as Fair Trade Books; books that are widely available secondhand are.) When you send us this total of $10, we send Northcutt or a charity of her choice $1. If you buy six of these books, you send us $35 and we send Northcutt or her charity $6.
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